


Waste of Space

by bluehat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dudley learns about all the wizard stuff, Dudley's Wife is a Great Person, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Good Dudley Dursley, Harry and Dudley have some much-needed talks, Post-Series, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Weddings, a lot of people are still deeply affected by the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehat/pseuds/bluehat
Summary: Out of the blue one day, Dudley Dursley receives an invitation to his cousin’s wedding.





	1. The Letter From Someone

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me out of nowhere, but I always have hoped that Dudley ended up being better than his parents. Hope you enjoy!

Dudley opened the door to his modest home, grunting slightly as he leaned over to gather the bundle of letters collected under the mail slot. Although he had lost a few pounds since his school days, he was still much more like his father in appearance than his stick-thin mother. His fiancée Grace had yet to arrive home from her day job at the hair parlor in town, for as it was Friday, he was home first. The quiet of the house was both calming and slightly unnerving. Ever since moving from his parents’ home, he had had to learn how to handle a silent room. Between his father’s bellowing tones and his mother’s constant chirps (and his own tantrums, his brain unhappily pointed out), there had been scarcely a still moment within the walls of Number Four. The only quiet one in the house had been Harry, who either wasn’t there at all or was shuffling quietly around the outskirts of the room.

Getting closer to his twenty-fourth birthday, it had been years since Dudley had heard anything from his cousin. Since his stumbling goodbye in his teenage years, the two had barely exchanged a few sentences. In a way, it seemed for the best to Dudley. There was not much he could do to repent for the years of torment he had put Harry through, and he was never much good at apologizing anyway. Harry had sent him a postcard or two, vague on details of his current life but letting him know that everything was going well, and Dudley had responded in kind. Grace had urged him to reach out. She kept telling him that the only way to forgive himself was to reconnect with his cousin. But Dudley knew that as much as he loved her, he didn’t really think she understood the situation. Harry probably wanted to hear from Dudley just about as much as Dudley wanted to talk to Harry—that is, not much at all.

He wondered why his thoughts were focusing so much on his cousin as he glanced at the photos on the mantlepiece for the one that contained his family, tossing the mail on the table without glancing at it. There was Grace with all of her sisters, photos of the two of them from their university days, and there—the Dursleys. His father and mother stood at his shoulders, smiling emptily for the camera. Harry was squeezed into the corner of the photo, reluctantly included in the face of the judgmental face of the photographer. He was barely smiling, doing the absolute minimum to not be scolded for being sullen. He guessed they were eleven or twelve in this photo. Dudley’s old shirt hung off of Harry’s skinny frame, and his hair was as wild as always.

Dudley let out a huff of a breath and set about making some stew for dinner. Grace loved stew in the winter, and since he had half days at the firm on Fridays he had begun to make them for her so she had hot food once she arrived. He still couldn’t believe he had ever managed to meet someone like her. Once he had moved out of Little Whinging, he had felt lost at university without his gang to back him up. No one seemed to take him seriously at all, in fact. He remembered wishing his mother had never forced him to attend, but she had claimed that he needed to be successful like his father, and that successful men attended university. It was one of the few things she had ever pushed him so firmly towards, and he had had few options in her iron grip. Without his parents’ watchful eyes and his friends’ faithful presence, though, it seemed doomed to be four years of lonely days.

Then, he had met Grace. She was the brightest student in his business classes and he had mumbled some request for tutoring, and she had smiled brightly and taken him under her wing. He knew his mother would never approve entirely of her boundless energy and frenetic lifestyle, but he couldn’t love it more. Besides, as he grew up, he had realized that his parents were wrong about many things. Things like Harry.

He lost himself in thought as he chopped broccoli and tossed it into the pot, stirring occasionally. He was thinking about one night at the bar closest to the university, hunched over a beer with his now-girlfriend. One of the waiters had messy black hair and glasses, and he jokingly remarked to her that he looked just like Harry.

“Who’s Harry?” she had asked confusedly.

“My cousin, of course! You know, the one I grew up with.”

“You grew up with your cousin? I thought you were the only kid in your house growing up. I guess maybe your house was closer to mine than I thought,” she laughed.

“No… No, it was plenty different,” he said sullenly, the alcohol making him feel depressed the way it often did later into the evening.

“Your parents don’t talk about him much,” she remarked, and he could tell she was probing slightly. He often told her she would make a better psychology major than cosmetology, and she told him to stuff it.

“No, they wouldn’t,” he agreed. If she wanted answers, he was going to make her work for it, he thought stubbornly. If he had been more sober, he would have been more tactful—and wouldn’t have brought up Harry in the first place, he thought to himself as he continued to stir the browning greens for the stew. Now, he was glad he had, but at the time he had begun to realize that this was leading to a conversation he didn’t want to have with a girl he really liked.

“Dudley,” she said with a sigh. “Either tell me or don’t. I’m not going to deal with you being mad at me over something _you_ brought up.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said, hands slightly up in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, I think I just forgot I never talked about him before. It’s a bit of a touchy subject, I guess, but it’s not a secret. You should probably know, though. Maybe it’ll tell you what kind of person I really am,” he said, only very slightly joking.

She looked at him with curiosity gleaming in her brown eyes. He pinched his nose with his fingers. God, he loved her so much, which was why he didn’t want to tell her his terrible shame.

“Go on!” she said, failing to disguise her eagerness as concern. He waved her off jokingly. 

“Come off it, this is serious,” he said gruffly.

“A secret cousin? How could it not be?” she said brightly.

“I told you, he’s not a secret! His parents died when we were both babies, and then my parents took him in, basically. He grew up with me until he turned seventeen, and then he left.”

“So you basically had a brother your whole life? How come no one talks about it? Did he run off with some girl or something? Was he some kind of juvenile delinquent, is that why no one talks about him?”

“Grace…” he said, sighing.

She examined his face closely. “I’m—I’m sorry. I can tell that this really is serious. I’m a bit drunk as well, I think,” she said, still cheery but more subdued. He smiled at her.

“No, it’s okay, I can’t imagine how weird this sounds to someone else. No, he—he went to a special boarding school once he turned eleven, one for—gifted children. So he wasn’t around for most of the year, and when he could he spent vacations away from home. Once he turned seventeen, he just—he um—he walked straight into a job, I suppose you could say. And he never looked back. He and my parents, um, didn’t get on. I didn’t really get on with him either, but that was my fault. I was a right git to him when we were younger. He doesn’t talk to me anymore.”

She looked at him, face full of surprise. “Wow, that was more dramatic than I was expecting, actually. Why didn’t he get along with your family?”

He rolled his eyes. “Have you met them?” She laughed, but still waited for a response. “My parents—they didn’t really want him, you know, because they really had no choice whenhis parents died. And I know that’s not Harry’s fault, now, but at the time they really just treated him like a burden. They thought he was—dangerous…” He trailed off, completely unsure as to how to explain the situation to her.

“Dangerous?” she asked bemusedly. “As a kid? Did he like, kill pets or something?”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” he assured her. “He was, special. They thought it was bad at the time, and so did I. But it wasn’t. He’s a good guy, really. He saved my life once.”

“He _what?”_

“Oh, yeah, there were some… criminals, near our house. They attacked the two of us and Harry fought them off. He could have left me, and had every right to, honestly, but he didn’t. After that, I… re-evaluated. I realized that my parents had been awful to him for no reason, really, and that I had been a huge arse. And then, a few years later, he left. I tried to tell him that I was sorry, when he did. And I think he knew. He was always smarter than me, I think.”

Grace looked at him, eyes seeming to see through all his layers of deception. “Huh,” she said. “That is… not something I would have expected, when I met you.”

He chuckled darkly. “Really? You didn’t gather that I had very recently begun recovery from being a horrible bullying git?”

She let out a belly laugh. “No, that part I figured. Secret special brother-cousin, however, I had not guessed.”

Dudley smiled to himself in his kitchen, hearing her laugh echo through his mind. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t left him, through all these years. Telling her about his past seemed to make everything simpler, smoothing out rough edges he hadn’t been able to understand for years. Through many late nights of slightly-tipsy confessions, she had tried to help him realize things about his cousin he had never known. She told him she thought that Harry knew that Dudley was just following in his parents’ footsteps. She told him that she thought Harry knew that Dudley was still a child, even if Harry had grown up. She told him, over and over, that she thought Dudley should meet with Harry (totally unmotivated, she falsely promised, by the desire to meet this mysterious stranger who was also, in part, her family).

“Dudley, darling, I’m home!” she called loudly from the front door as it swung open and made a huge banging noise as it hit the wall. She never opened it with the caution to avoid the growing dent in the hallway. 

“I could hear you from down the block!” he called back jokingly. She walked into the kitchen and pressed her hands to the back of his neck. They were ice cold and he flinched and shivered. “You’re terrible!” he cried in protest.

“I’m coooold,” she responded. “Stew! You wonderful, wonderful man.”

“How was the parlor?” he asked.

“Same old, same old. Did you grab the mail? I didn’t see it when I came in and I want to check if the electrical company has stopped sending us those—oh there it is,” she said, sentence distracted by sighting the mail on the dining room table. She walked over and flipped through the letters, and he could hear the paper scratching as he had his back to her stirring the stew. It was nearly to the point where he could leave it for a few hours before they ate dinner, when they would curl up in front of the television and watch whatever late-night talkshow she was interested in.

“Dudley?” she called in a somewhat strangled tone. “Darling, I—I think you might want to see this.”

Her tone worried him instantly. “Is everything all right? What’s the matter?”

“No, no—it’s not bad. Just come here.”

He left the wooden spoon leaning against the stew pot and walked into the dining room. Her face was inscrutable aside from the obvious shock, and she was holding a white envelope with delicate gold decoration on it. _Save the Date,_ it declared.

She handed him the darker gold card that had presumably been inside of the envelope. He flicked it open with no small amount of apprehension, and was stunned at what lay inside.

Harry’s face smiled up at him, next to a beautiful red-haired freckled woman who vaguely resembled some blurry figures in his memory who had once blown up his fireplace. The picture shocked him so much he could barely read the caption. Once he had, however, he felt as if the universe were rooting him to his spot on his hardwood floor, feet feeling heavy with the weight of the words.

 

_Harry Potter_

_&_

_Ginny Weasley_

_invite you to join them_

_for the celebration of their_

_wedding._  

 

Dudley’s mouth hung open as he gazed down at the elegant paper, the cousin he had not seen or spoken to in many years smiling back up at him. Harry looked… older, but not in the way Dudley felt he himself did. When Dudley looked in the mirror, he hated seeing the lines appear on his face. He felt he would never look as energetic as he had when he was a teenager, although he was only twenty-three. Harry, on the other hand, looked better than he ever had. He and his soon-to-be-wife looked like they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle as they stood in each other’s arms. 

He looked at his own fiancée, his shock mirrored on her face. Suddenly, a smile broke through her face. “We have to go!” she declared.

“Y-yeah,” he said. “I mean—I’m going to go. I just can’t believe he…” he muttered as he stared at the card. He reached for the envelope from her hands, wanting to touch everything to make sure it was real. Was this some kind of prank, where Harry had magicked the paper to turn into a glitter bomb or something? But Dudley knew Harry would never even have done that when they were kids. This was the kind of gesture that Grace had been urging him to make. An olive branch.

Inside the envelope, he saw a thin piece of paper that she had missed in her eagerness to open the card. There was a short letter penned in a messy scrawl in green ink.

 

_Dudley,_

_I know we haven’t talked much, and this is probably a lot. But we’re family, so if you would like to come, please do. If not, don’t worry, it’s fine and I understand. I heard you got engaged as well, so feel free to bring your fiancée. I would like to meet her, and Ginny would like to meet you. Most people will be writing back by owl post, but you can send your reply to the address on the back and I’ll make sure I get it._

_Harry_

_P.S. I’m not planning on mentioning this to Petunia and Vernon. In the interest of preserving whatever good will I have left with them, it would be great if you could avoid the subject with them, no matter what your decision is._

 

Grace had been looking curiously at the paper in his hands, so he handed it to her once he was done reading. “Jeez, you weren’t kidding. He doesn’t even seem like he expects you to come to his wedding,” she said. “And he didn’t even invite your parents.”

“He probably doesn’t,” said Dudley shortly. “And I can understand why he didn’t.”

“At least you two are on better terms than him and Petunia and Vernon. You said you left on a pretty decent note the last time you saw him in person, right?”

He huffed a laugh. “I told him I didn’t think he was a waste of space, I suppose. Not sure that quite made up for seventeen years of torment.”

“Well, write him straight away then. I’ve been telling you, but now he’s made the first move and it’s all moving forward, which is fantastic. It’ll be good for both of you to have a chat, as I’ve been saying. What’s this ‘owl post’ he’s talking about?”

“Ah,” said Dudley, realizing that perhaps Grace attending this wedding was going to require some explanations he had never quite provided her with the exact nature of Harry’s “special qualities.” He didn’t want her to think she was hallucinating when—when rabbits came jumping out of top hats, or whatever happened at a magic wedding. “I think maybe you should sit down.”


	2. The Dursleys Arriving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I realized I’m bad at math and fixed a few ages and dates in the last chapter, whoooops lol)

“Oh. My. _God,_ Dudley Dursley! I’m your fiancée and you never bothered to tell me that _magic is real?!_ ” shouted Grace as she paced frantically around their living room.

“Well, I never really thought you would believe me,” he said placatingly.

“I probably wouldn’t have but—but you wouldn’t lie about something like this, and—and— _that!_ ” she exclaimed, pointing at his improvised proof. He had nicked a few small objects from Harry’s room while he was at school over the years, creating a strange collection. These included a stick that looked a bit like Harry’s magic wand except that it turned into a small rubber chicken when picked up, a small pamphlet about a sport Dudley didn’t understand, and a chess knight that stirred feebly when prodded. Dudley had also presented Harry’s postcards, which included a few moving photos of his cousin. He had spent hours watching the tiny figure wave or smile faintly, fascinated and disturbed by the magic he had been taught to be afraid of. Grace still couldn’t quite tear her eyes off of them, after more than an hour of stumbled explanations and outbursts.

“Honey…” he said faintly.

“Your cousin is a _wizard?!_ ” she shrieked. “You’re not messing about, are you? Because _so help me_ —”

“I’m not, I’m not!” he protested. “You’ve met my parents. Doesn’t it make more sense? They want to be absolutely normal more than anyone I’ve ever met. Don’t you see why they hated him so much?”

This calmed her slightly as the logic seemed to sink in. “I always did wonder, what exactly he did to make them hate him so much,” she said faintly.

“You can call them and ask if you like, but they won’t be too happy about talking about it,” he said grudgingly. “They’ll back me up, but they hate even hearing the word ‘magic.’ The fact that he could do it, and that his parents could—they hated it. Still do.”

She looked deep into his eyes. “Maybe I’m crazy, and that’s why I believe you,” she said slowly. “Oh my god. Maybe I am.”

He stepped towards her and stopped her pacing by gripping her gently on the shoulders. “Grace, you’re not crazy and neither am I. I’m sorry I never told you about this, but I think you can understand why I didn’t. I just wanted to warn you because the wedding is likely going to be… rather… a spectacle.”

Grace stayed still for a few moments before some internal light seemed to shine through her eyes. “What kind of a spectacle?” she asked. “My god, I’m going to get to go to a magic wedding! What—what should I expect?”

Dudley was stunned by her excitement. Something seemed to click into place somewhere inside his head. This was how people ought to react to magic, with wonder and awe. Not the way his family had. It struck him once more how lucky he had been to meet his fiancée. “I’m not really sure,” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know much about the magic world and all that, really. Harry and I didn’t talk.”

“You don’t know _anything_? How could you not ask _questions_? Didn’t you ever _see_ anything?” she asked rapidly, slightly flushed with shock.

“Um, one time this family blew up our fireplace,” he said. “I—I think it was an accident, though. And one time I got cursed to have a pig tail, and I had to get it surgically removed, and, um—once I ate a magic sweet and it made my tongue grow. That was the same time as the fireplace, actually, and the dad of that family put me right again eventually. I think—I’m not sure, but I think that’s the family of the girl. Um, Harry’s fiancée, I guess. Jen—Ginny? And—and there’s probably a few more things.”

“Like _what?_ You can’t expect to get off with such a vague response after you’ve kickstarted one of the greatest revelations of my life, you git!”

“Um, the time that Harry—that he saved my life.”

She paused. “From those criminals? I did think it was odd that there were criminals in Little Whinging.”

“Yeah, they weren’t… I don’t know what they were. I forget the word Harry used for them. But I couldn’t see anything at all, when they came at us. I felt my—my happiness draining away. Some kind of spell or something, I guess. It made me realize all the things I hated about myself at once. In a way, I guess it made me change about some stuff, but it really was one of the worst times of my life. And Harry used his wand and made—made whatever it was go away.”

She looked at him, mouth agape, and hit him very lightly on the arm with a mock punch. “Dudley Dursley, if you weren’t so serious I’d think you were taking the mickey. You—you—how could you not _tell_ me—you—okay.” She stammered through some angry words, and then paused and took a deep breath. “Write him back, then. If we have the chance to go to a magic wedding and you make us miss it, so help me—”

“Okay, okay!” he said, laughing. Her blustering words brought some humor back into him, when all he had been feeling was an uncomfortable mixture of curiosity and shame. “Where’s a pen?”

A pen and a sheet of paper were soon found, and Dudley sat down. All he had to do was say yes. It shouldn’t be that hard to write such a short letter.

 

~~ _Dear Harry,_ ~~

 

~~ _Harry,_ ~~

~~ _Yes, my fiancée and I_ ~~

 

~~ _Harry,_ ~~

~~ _Thank you for inviting us. My fiancée and I_ ~~

 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Grace over his shoulder. “Give it here.”

 

_Dear Harry,_

_Thank you very much for inviting us to your wedding. My fiancée Grace and I would be delighted to see you and to meet Ginny. We would be honored to come._

_Sincerely,_

_Dudley_

 

“That’s all you need to say, so stop fussing and send it,” she said kindly. He nodded, grateful for her impatient presence. If it were up to him he probably would have re-worded it a hundred times before tossing it out altogether. He had never once known what to say to Harry and it didn’t seem as though he was going to start now. He examined the address on the back of the card, and penned it on the envelope. While doing so, he noticed something he had previously ignored.

 

_Saturday, November 22nd, 2003_

 

“Grace?” he asked nervously. “What’s today’s date, again?”

“Um, the… seventh?” she asked, searching for a stamp.

“Grace,” he said again. “Grace, this wedding is in two weeks.”

“ _What?!_ ” she said, shocked. “No, it must be—next year—no—huh?!” She gaped at the date. “So it is,” she said, more calmly than he had expected. “Well, I suppose we’d better go get them a wedding present, hadn’t we?”

“ _Two weeks_?!” he said. “That’s not normal, right?”

“Well, I think we’ve firmly established that this lot isn’t very normal, haven’t we?” she said with surprising composure for someone who had only very recently discovered the fact that her fiancée had a bunch of wizards for family.

A thought struck Dudley as he looked down at the wedding date. “He probably wasn’t sure if he wanted to invite me,” he said softly.

Grace gave him a searching look, probably wondering if she should comfort him or be honest with him. She seemed to decide on the latter. “Perhaps,” she said, shrugging. “But he did. So, we’ll go.”

He suddenly stood up very quickly and gave her a huge hug. She made everything simpler, in his mind. He was so glad he didn’t have to go deal with a bunch of freaky wizard stuff without her.

“Oh, you,” she said quietly, rubbing his back. “I bet he’s just as nervous about this as you are. You two need to have this talk, and it’s not going to be fun. But you’ll both be better for having done it, I promise.” 

He leaned against her and rested his head on her shoulder, making no reply.

 

—

 

The date of the wedding was fast approaching, and Dudley and Grace scrambled to prepare. They booked train tickets to Ottery St. Catchpole and wondered after the exact location of “the Burrow,” found suitable clothes—Dudley had enough nice suits from work, but Grace wanted to buy a new dress—and picked up a set of cookbooks for the couple. With the absence of a registry as far as he knew, Dudley had worried for days about what to get them before Grace appeared with the nicely bound set, declaring shortly, “No one _doesn’t_ want a cookbook.” He wondered if wizards even _used_ cookbooks, but if they didn’t he supposed that he couldn’t exactly be expected to know that. It was like being a tourist for a country he knew next to nothing about, where he had no idea what to wear, what to say, or how to act. He would be terrified beyond belief to go at all if Grace weren’t with him. One afternoon he smirked to himself, wondering how Harry would feel that Dudley was now the one filled with terror for their impending meeting.

Grace and Dudley were going to go in the night before the wedding and sleep at “the Burrow,” according to the follow-up letter from Harry’s fiancée. She said that the rest of the guests would be “apparating” in in the morning and wouldn’t need to stay, so they had enough room for the two of them. She did not explain what the hell _that_ meant, but Dudley was grateful for the lodgings, if not so grateful for the fact that he would likely be forced to interact one-on-one with not only Harry but probably the entire Weasley family. He could just imagine the things Harry might have told them about him. Scratch being a tourist in a foreign land—he was a tourist entering downright hostile territory.

The night before their departure, Dudley checked over their bags one last time as Grace lay in bed reading. “Come lie down, darling,” she called. “Checking for the fiftieth time that you have your suit isn’t going to make you any less nervous about talking to Harry.”

Flinching ashamedly away from opening his suit’s packaging to check on it, he sat on the edge of the bed with his back turned away from her. His eyes staring determinedly at the wall, he said softly, “There’s no way they’re not going to hate me, Gracie. I’m everything he’s told them I am.”

He heard rustling behind him and then felt her arms wrap around his shoulders. “But you’re so much more,” she whispered in his ear. He reluctantly felt a small smile play across his lips. “Now go to sleep!”

In the morning, the two loaded their bags into the trunk of the car and headed towards the train station, making their way quite early due to Dudley’s nerves. He couldn’t stop his foot from tapping against the pavement near-constantly even with Grace’s hand placed gently on his knee. When the train finally arrived he leaped onto it, almost eager for this whole event to be over with. No matter how badly things went, it was only two days, if that. If it was terrible they could come home and forget about it. These thoughts felt like they logically should be reassuring, but no matter how many times he repeated them to himself, they never seemed to help much. 

Dudley stared out at the rainy, cold English countryside and felt its dreary mood seep deep inside of him. Grace tried to cheer him up periodically, but after an hour or so he could tell even she was frustrated by his sullen attitude. He just couldn’t bring himself to act happy or fine, as much as he wanted to for her sake. Even through her faint frustration, she kept a steady hand on his back. It was anchoring him as he anxiously stared out the foggy window, really seeing nothing.

Finally, the train’s last stop arrive and the two got out, carrying their bags with not much trouble—they were only packing for two days, after all. Once they got onto the platform, however, Dudley’s worry peaked. “I—I don’t know where to go from here,” he admitted sheepishly. “I looked it up, but there’s no “burrow” listed anywhere around. Should we go into town and ask someone, or—”

“Dursley! Dudley Dursley?” came an inquisitive shout from further down the platform. An official-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses, red hair and freckles, which led Dudley to internally conclude he must be part of the bride’s family, was waving to them.

He stared at the man for a moment, and Grace shoved him forward slightly. “Oh—oh, yes, that’s me!” he responded, making strides down the platform that were far bolder than he was feeling. Once he reached the man, he stuck out a hand. “Dudley Dursley, nice to meet you. And this is my fiancée Grace.”

The man shook his hand, and upon closer inspection Dudley was relieved to see that he appeared just as normal up close as he had far away. There was no wand-waving funny business about this man’s appearance, he looked every bit a businessman or official on his way to work. This kind of man, Dudley knew how to deal with. “I’m Percy Weasley, pleasure to meet you both,” the man said, with the air of someone who considers themselves rather important. For once, Dudley didn’t mind—he had felt no power in the whole situation to begin with, so why should he mind relinquishing it?

Grace shook the man’s hand as well, and clearly realized she was going to need to be the talkative one for a little while. “So, Percy, are you Ginny’s brother? I’m afraid I don’t know much about any of you all,” she said, chuckling slightly to ease the tension.

“Yes, I am,” he said, smiling at her. “We’re quite a big family—Dudley met some of my brothers and my father before, but we’ve never met, I don’t think.” Dudley smiled at him in a desperate attempt to make a good first impression. “Shall we go to the car?” Percy continued.

“Car. Yes, good,” said Dudley awkwardly, trying not to let his relief that they were traveling by car and not some magic contraption show.

“Yeah, Dad loves cars,” said Percy. “This isn’t the one that Ron used to break Harry out that one year though, that one ran off into the forest when those two idiots crashed it.” He laughed a little, clearly meaning to include Dudley in some inside joke, but Dudley understood so little of what was being said that he only laughed because he knew he was supposed to. He of course remembered the flying car hanging outside Harry’s barred bedroom window, but he had not known that this family was behind that misadventure as well. Harry certainly had made some interesting friends.

The mercifully normal-looking car sat innocuously in the station’s parking lot, but Dudley still gave it a suspicious glare before opening the door. Grace, who had no such qualms, jumped right in and gave a surprised “Ooh!” from inside.

Not one to leave his wife alone, Dudley joined her. As soon as he looked at it from inside, it was as if the car had expanded. There would have been room for eight people where there were now only three. As Percy took the driver’s seat, he saw their shocked expressions. “Oh, yes, there’s a charm on the inside. Makes everything bigger, you see. More comfortable.” Seeming satisfied with his own explanation, he started the engine. Dudley touched the seat and then the car door, needing more than one sense to affirm they were real. He smoothed over his short blond hair in the car mirror anxiously, and then stopped immediately when he got the feeling someone was looking at him.

“So, how long have you known Harry?” asked Grace conversationally. Dudley could have kissed her for being the only one of the two of them seeming to be capable of behaving like a human being.

Percy laughed. “Since he was just starting school, I think. I mean, it wasn’t the first time I ever heard his name, obviously, but I used to be a Hogwarts prefect back in the day and so I made a point to get to know all the first-year students at least a little. That and he hit it off with Ron straight away, so I kept an eye on him along with my little brother. Those two did get into some trouble, that I’ll tell you.” He made a turn through the town’s main street towards a series of dusty dirt roads.

Dudley wondered at why Percy had ever heard Harry’s name before meeting him, but wasn’t brave enough to ask. Grace once again intervened, asking, “How many brothers do you have? Are you the oldest?” She seemed to be attempting to both sate her boundless curiosity and keep some kind of conversation going.

“No, no, Bill’s the oldest. He and his wife will be getting in sometime tonight as well. Charlie as well—he’s the second oldest. Below me are—um, is George, and then Ron, and then Ginny. The family baby. And now she’s getting married!” he said, in a tone that was both loving and slightly nervous. “Of course, we all knew it was coming. She and Harry have been together since they were teenagers. How much has Harry told you of this? I don’t want to bore you,” he said, in a tone that made it fairly clear that he was used to being told he was quite boring.

“Harry and I don’t talk much,” said Dudley honestly. “I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend until we got the wedding invitation,” he said a touch too somberly. 

Grace forced a chuckle. “But we’re so excited to meet her! And to see Harry. It’s been too long.”

“Well, here we are,” declared Percy. The car rounded a corner and came out through some trees, and there was the most ramshackle, odd-looking house Dudley had ever seen. As he exited the car, he would have been convinced magic was real just by looking at the structure, for there was no way it would still be standing without it. The entire exterior was decorated in floating lights, with some strange, highly realistic statues of small men that looked like evil garden gnomes adorning various windowsills like bizarre gargoyles. Above the small garden gate was a huge banner that declared in messy red and gold lettering, “ _Congratulations Harry & Ginny!_” He could hear many voices coming from inside the kitchen, but no one was visible yet. From behind him, he felt Grace silently slip her hand into his.

“Welcome to the Burrow,” said Percy with a touch of pride in his snide voice.


	3. Dudley Determined

Dudley reluctantly followed Percy through the garden, pushing open the rusty garden gate that looked as though it had been recently polished. Grace was right behind him, still keeping a light but firm grip on his hand. Maybe she could tell that it was all that was keeping him from sprinting away from the house at full speed.

Percy pushed open the small, homely door, edged on either side by glittering bushes. Dudley took a deep breath and stepped inside, and was immediately assaulted by sight and sound as the huge family talked in small groups. To his relief, they were all wearing what looked like normal clothes—none of the robes and whatever else he dimly remembered from his childhood. The distinctive red hair and freckles allowed him to recognize the Weasley family, including an older man and woman he assumed were the parents, the father vaguely recognizable, a tall man with a scarred face arm-in-arm with an extremely beautiful blonde woman, both talking to his more stocky brother, and a thin man whose impish grin also stirred something in his memory standing with a tall, athletic-looking black woman. 

Towards the side of the kitchen stood another brother, the youngest he could see—presumably Harry’s friend—who was laughing with a determined-looking girl with bushy hair. Just descending from the stairs were Ginny, who was wearing some kind of sports jersey for a team Dudley didn’t recognize, the “Holyhead Harpies,” and, of course, Harry. Harry looked just like the picture in the wedding invitation—a little older, a little more serious-seeming, definitely happier—but it was him. Dudley couldn’t believe that for the first time in six years the two of them were standing in the same room.

“Harry?” he said quietly. The room was silenced almost instantly by his arrival, causing his stomach to squirm. The woman who he had guessed was the mother broke into a wide smile that seemed only slightly forced.

“You must be Dudley! What a pleasure to meet you. I’m Molly Weasley, and this is my husband Arthur—you met once, I think?”

Arthur smiled. “Yes, with the—tongue—and all,” he muttered embarrassedly. “Sorry about that.”

Dudley vaguely waved off the apology. “It’s really not a problem, sir.”

“Oh, don’t call me sir, call me Arthur! We’re about to be family, after all.”

Molly continued her introductions. “This is our oldest son Bill, and his wife Fleur,” she indicated the scarred man and the beautiful woman, “Charlie,” the stocky man, “George and Angelina,” the man with the wicked smile and the black woman, “Ron and Hermione—you probably already know them?” she said in a questioning tone. Dudley shook his head. “And of course you know Harry and Ginny,” she said, rushing past the awkward moments. “Well, we don’t want to bombard you both with too much at once—and there’s far too many people in this kitchen, anyhow. Everybody out! There’s tea in the garden, and I need to finish making dinner for tonight. Harry, Ginny, dears, why don’t you show them to their room?”

“Okay, mum,” said Ginny easily as the crowd exited the room. Molly walked outside, muttering something about looking for her husband, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering Arthur had barely left the room. Ginny walked over easily to Dudley and Grace, with Harry hovering behind her. Dudley was struck by the similarity in their positions as they both hid awkwardly behind their fiancées. 

“Nice to meet you, I’m Ginny Weasley,” she said, extending her hand towards Dudley. Dudley shook it, and from his side Grace extended her hand as well.

“I’m Grace Alby, nice to meet you. Now, shall we go take these bags into the room so these two can stop pretending like they don’t exist?” she asked brightly. Ginny laughed.

“Yes, we absolutely can. Play nice, you two,” she said, and the two women exited, laughing about something that probably included him and Harry in the punchline. 

Harry met his eyes for the first time, green flickering up to meet Dudley’s watery blue. “Hey, Big D,” said Harry as casually as possible, but it still sounded incredibly forced. “Been a while.”

“Yeah,” said Dudley, feeling stupid. “Look, Harry—”

“Dudley, I—”

The two spoke simultaneously and then stuttered to a halt. Suddenly Harry laughed, putting his head in his hands. “Can we just start over?” he said, shoulders still shaking slightly with repressed mirth. “This is going to be so weird, and we both know it, so let’s not pretend like we barely know each other, all right?” he said, smiling. Dudley nodded, feeling slightly more comfortable.

“Yeah. Look, Harry, thanks for inviting me and Grace, okay? I would’ve understood if you hadn’t.”

“Don’t thank me too much. Ginny made me make a decision in the end. She’s been saying for ages that we needed to talk, and I figured she’s right about a lot of things so she probably is about this, too. And Hermione agreed with her, so, that’s pretty much that matter settled then isn’t it?”

“Sounds like Ginny will get along great with Grace,” grunted Dudley. “She’s been saying the same thing.”

“Grace seems nice,” said Harry. “Where did you two meet?”

“Oh, uh—university,” said Dudley uncomfortably.

“ _University?”_ asked Harry, clearly trying not to sound as incredulous as he was.

“Yeah—don’t look at me like that, my mum made me go,” Dudley responded in a tone that sounded far too whiny for his liking.

“No, I’m not trying to insult you—ugh,” said Harry, putting his head in his hands for the second time and taking a deep breath. “We’re going to need some work at this, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” said Dudley.

“Look, I know how you feel about magic—and there’s going to be a lot of it, probably, and a lot of wizards and stuff at this thing who are going to be kind of weirded out that you’re muggles and all—non-magic people,” he said in response to Dudley’s look of confusion. “So I’m sorry that this has to be how we, uh, reconnect. But I just thought—it’s my wedding, after all, so if not now, when, y’know?”

Dudley nodded, a bit confused, but he understood the sentiment. “Don’t worry about us, Harry,” he said, in his first moment of eloquence since their arrival. “It’s your wedding. We have lots of time to figure, uh, whatever else out later.”

Harry nodded. “Uh, good talk,” he said, clapping Dudley extremely awkwardly on the shoulder, and then he slipped out of the room as quickly as he had arrived. Ginny and Grace returned to the room, practically shoulder-to-shoulder. 

“Where’d Harry go? He run off?” Ginny asked Dudley. 

“Uh,” said Dudley.

“We’ll talk more to him later,” said Grace. Ginny nodded, looking frustrated about something. 

“Well, unfortunately I’ve much to do, so why don’t you two go talk to some of the family? I think they’re in the garden somewhere,” said Ginny. 

“Sounds wonderful,” said Grace with a smile.

As Ginny turned to leave the room, Dudley called out to her for the first time. “Uh, Ginny?” he said.

“Yeah?” she said, turning to face him.

“Um… congratulations. I bet you and Harry are gonna be, uh, happy.”

Ginny smiled a soft smile at him. “Thanks, Dudley.”

As Ginny left, Grace squeezed his arm. “You’re doing great. Let’s go talk to some more of the family, why don’t we?” He nodded numbly, feeling as though this day might never end.

 

—

 

“So what do you _do_ , Dudley?” asked Arthur with an oddly high amount of interest. “And Grace?”

“Uh, I work for a drill firm. It’s a branch, of, uh, the one my dad works for,” Dudley answered.

“I work in a hair salon!” responded Grace brightly. “It’s frustrating work sometimes, but Ilove it. I used to be interested in chemistry, but I did that for a little while and decided it just wasn’t really for me in the end!”

“Chemistry? I used to love chemistry!” responded the girl with bushy hair, distracted from her own conversation, whose name Dudley had already forgotten. “I’m Hermione, by the way,” she said, shaking Grace’s hand. Right. That’s what it was.

“Grace,” she responded. “How do you know Harry and Ginny?” she asked.

Hermione laughed. “It’s funny to have someone ask me that after so many years. I’ve known Harry since we were eleven—we were in the same class at school. Ginny was a year below us, but we both were friends with Ron so we knew her. This is Ron, by the way, my boyfriend,” she added, pulling one of the red-haired men seemingly out of nowhere.

“Uh… nice to meet you,” said Ron uncomfortably. He kept shooting dirty looks at Dudley when he thought no one could see him, but Dudley felt as though he probably deserved it.

“We all met on the train to school for the first time, but we weren’t quite friends until we fought a troll together once,” said Hermione. Dudley noted that this woman seemed to enjoy the sound of her own voice, but honestly it was much appreciated in a conversation where he had extremely little to say. 

“Wait, did you say a _troll?_ ” said Grace. Dudley did a double take himself, as he had merely been letting the short woman’s voice wash over him.

“I’m sorry, I can’t even imagine how strange this must be for the two of you,” said Hermione with a note of slight amusement in her voice. “I remember how I felt, when I found out about it all.”

“What?” asked Dudley bemusedly. Didn’t wizards just… know about all of this stuff? The only reason Harry hadn’t was because of his parents, anyway. “Didn’t your parents tell you about it?”

Hermione let out a full laugh. “No, that would’ve been difficult as they’re both dentists,” she explained. “Not all wizards and witches are born into magic families, like the Weasleys. I’m what they call a ‘muggle-born’ witch—someone with magic from a non-magic family. I’m like if you two were to have a magical child.”

“That can happen?” Dudley asked, stunned. He’d known Harry’s parents were wizards, and had always assumed that’s where he’d gotten it from. But now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t think his mother had ever implied that _her_ parents were magic in the slightest. Had Harry’s mother been the same as Hermione?

“I just found out about all of this two weeks ago!” said Grace brightly. “I must say, it feels good to be ‘in the know’—I feel like a secret agent or something.”

Hermione laughed. “Well, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I have a lot of experience explaining magic things to my parents, and I went through the whole induction process myself—although I was eleven, so I’m a bit rusty.”

The two of them chatted with Hermione and Arthur for a while, with Ron and most of the rest of the family giving them strange looks in the garden. Dudley got the sense that this was the usual family gathering crowd, with the exception of the two of them—no one else seemed to be an outsider aside from Grace and himself. Soon, afternoon turned to evening, and Molly reappeared and handed out chores. Harry and Ginny hadn’t been seen much, both seemingly having their hands full with the impending wedding. All of the Weasley brothers and their significant others were drafted to help set up the tables, while Dudley and Grace hovered awkwardly as they had been doing all day. The family wasn’t quite visible through the thick clump of bushes the two found themselves in, but light shone through and illuminated Grace’s dark eyes.

“They all seem very nice,” said Grace to him quietly.

“Some of them hate me,” he said to her. She looked at him.

“Some of them don’t know you very well. Don’t worry so much, we’ll win them over.” He gave her a doubtful look and she snorted. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“They’re right to hate me,” he said. “I was horrible. And I’m not very good at talking to people.”

“Nonsense,” she declared. “You talk to people all day at work.”

“Business people. People who I don’t care about, Grace. People who haven’t already spent years hearing terrible things about me. People who—”

“Dinner!” called Molly.

“Come on, you big lug,” said Grace. “Let’s go talk to some people who will learn more about you eventually. Just—ask questions. Everyone likes talking about themselves.”

With this sage advice in mind, Dudley and Grace walked towards the sounds of voices further along in the garden. When the scene came into view, Dudley stopped dead in his tracks. Two tables laden with food were flying—actually _flying_ —across the garden before skidding to a stop directly before the two of them. After the tables came a procession of floating candles, placing themselves delicately, and chairs that flew in an orderly line, tucking their edges in under the tables.

“George! _What are you thinking?!_ I spent _hours_ cooking and then you _fling it across the garden_ —Angelina, darling, please talk some sense into him.”

Angelina was too busy laughing to do anything of the kind. Dudley stood there dumbfounded. This was real, actual magic—he’d seen it before, but it was still enough to take his breath away. Beside him, Grace was gripping his arm, hard.

He turned to look at her, and finally understood what the expression “starry-eyed” was meant to mean—she looked as though the world’s joys had been displayed before her all at once.

“Magic is real,” she breathed.

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

The two of them took seats midway down one of the tables, and immediately were surrounded by people. Bill and Fleur took their seats next to Dudley, while George and Angelina sat next to Grace. Harry was seated all the way on the other side of the table, a fact that both filled Dudley with relief and regret.

“What a pleasure eet eez to finally meet you both,” said Fleur in a clear French accent. “We ‘ave not ‘eard enough from ‘Arry’s side of ze family.”

“Yes—er—that’s not surprising,” said Dudley uncomfortably. “My parents and him don’t get on well.”

Bill looked at him closely. It was the first time Dudley had ever gotten near either of the two of them, and he could see the frightening scars on the eldest Weasley brother’s face in clear detail by the candlelight. Fleur’s presence by his side seemed to soften them both, however, making him not seem threatening the way he might have alone in a dark alley. He looked like what Dudley imagined of an archetypical older brother—smart, and fiercely protective.

“Yeah, we’ve heard a bit about your parents from Harry,” said Bill, wisely not elaborating. Dudley could just imagine the stories Harry might have told them—and he wouldn’t have to exaggerate to horrify. He still remembered the look on Grace’s face when he had told her about the cupboard under the stairs, or the bars on his window. Fleur turned to Bill and said something in French, to which he responded in the same language, so Dudley turned his attention to Grace’s conversation.

“You know, Bill and Fleur got married here too,” said George. “Back in ’97. We’ll be setting up the same marquee tomorrow—worked once, why not try again?” There was an odd note to his voice that Dudley didn’t quite understand.

Bill seemed to have turned his attention at the same time Dudley had. “Yes, that wedding went _ever so well_ , didn’t it.” 

“Well, we hope for no return appearance of the Death Eaters, obviously—” began George harshly.

“Don’t even joke,” said Bill.

“The who?” asked Dudley, trying to keep in mind what Grace had said about asking questions.

“Uh—not exactly light dinner conversation,” warned Bill. 

“Oh, er, sorry,” said Dudley, who was now cursing his ability to ask exactly the _wrong_ question.

“Zey should know,” interjected Fleur. “‘Arry eez zeir family. And zey don’t even know—” 

“Why don’t we discuss it another time,” suggested Bill gently. “I agree, but perhaps not now.”

Fleur nodded, placated. Dudley and Grace exchanged a confused look. It seemed like there was some very big secret they were both being left out of the loop on.

“There was a war. Some terrorists broke in, terrorized the wedding, yadda yadda yadda,” said George unexpectedly. “No need to leave the muggles out. It’s not actually that long of a story.” His tone seemed on edge somehow, and Dudley wondered how much he’d had to drink. Angelina reached over and touched George’s arm, and he met her eyes. “Sorry,” he grunted, and excused himself from the table, leaving Dudley more confused than ever.

He wasn’t sure if this was some big prank he didn’t understand—a war?!—but he decided not to push his luck with the questioning on that front. He’d known something was going on when he and his parents had briefly moved out of their house when he was seventeen, and remembered Harry saying some very frightening things, but he’d honestly forgotten all of that over time. It had only been a few months of his life, and nothing bad had ever actually happened. What had been going _on_ in Harry’s life?

Dinner came and went without much fuss, although Dudley happily noted that this magic food was certainly delicious. As everyone bid each other goodnight, Dudley tried to catch Harry, but thought better of it. Harry probably wanted a good night’s sleep before one of the most important days of his life, and Dudley’s presence was probably weird enough all by itself. Dudley soon found himself in a small but cozy room filled with boxes of decorations that had probably been dragged out for the wedding. He and Grace busied around the room, getting ready for bed. She paused, looking for something.

“Dud, I think I left our bag with the toothbrushes in the main room. Would you fetch it? I’m already in my pajamas.”

He nodded and left the room, walking down the stairs and quickly spotting the small green bag on a counter. He grabbed it swiftly and walked back towards his room, but was distracted by some slightly raised voices from a room on the ground floor.

“Ron, it’s Harry’s decision. He wanted Dudley here. It’s not up to whether or not _you_ like it.”

“Harry asked Dudley to come because he felt too uncomfortable not to! It’s not because he _wanted_ to. If anything, it’s because _Ginny_ wanted him to. Hermione, listen, it’s—”

“Harry is an adult and he makes his own decisions. And Dudley and Grace are already lost enough in this world they barely know about, they could do without your glares—”

“ _Bars. On his window_. Bars on his window, Hermione! And always showing up looking half-starved—”

“You can’t blame Dudley for that. It’s not his fault.”

“I shudder to think of the eleven years before he met us! There certainly wasn’t anyone looking out for him _then_. It’s a good thing Voldemort took so long to come back, because if he’d come back while Harry was still there Harry would probably be _dead_. They would have handed him over on a silver platter.”

“Dudley was a child. He didn’t have any more say in his parents’ behavior than Harry did.”

“Dudley was a bully! Harry’s said so himself. And I don’t care. I won’t forgive him until Harry does—and even then, I’m going to have to think about it.”

Dudley could hear Hermione sigh. “You would be irritating if I didn’t know it was because you’re worried about him.”

“Of course I’m worried about him. He’s my best friend and it’s his wedding. I just want him to be happy.”

“Well, let’s not fight. Let’s just go to bed and be happy for him. He can deal with his problems on his own.”

“I know,” sighed Ron. “That’s what I’m worried about. I don’t want him to feel like I don’t have his back.”

“He knows we have his back. We always have,” said Hermione, and then there were shuffling noises that scared Dudley back up the flight of stairs. He paused outside his own door, thinking over what he had heard. It was everything he had feared—he was a threat to his cousin’s happiness just by being here, despised by everyone from the shadows. And everything Ron had been saying was absolutely true.

Dudley opened the door to his room, and some of his internal turmoil must have shown on his face. Grace wrapped her arms around his neck as soon as he entered.

“What’s the matter?” she asked seriously.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he whispered gruffly. “I shouldn’t have. I mean it.”

Grace hugged him tightly and shook her head. “No, you should have and you did. And I’m proud of you. We can make it through one more day, can’t we?”

He nodded.

“So let’s go and have a wonderful time at this wedding, and tomorrow night before we leave you’re going to make sure you sit down and talk to Harry for a little while, okay?”

He paused. 

“Okay?”

Dudley sighed and nodded. “I just—it’s his day. I don’t want to make him talk to me when it’s just going to be unpleasant for both of us.”

Grace put her hands gently on his shoulders. “He invited you here, Dudley. Maybe _because_ it’s his day. He wants to move on. And that’s why we’re here.”

Dudley could only nod and hope more than anything that she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Many. Uncomfortable. Conversations. I tried with Fleur’s accent to imitate JK as much as possible but if I screwed up let me know. Also, I don’t mean to portray George in a negative light—I just think he’s in a bit of a rough situation. 
> 
> There will probably be about one or two more chapters! We'll see how it goes. Thank you guys for all the lovely comments, they really make my day. <3


	4. The Wedding Again

The morning of the wedding dawned misty and slightly rainy, but Dudley was assured by Molly, who seemed to mainly be talking to herself, that everything would be fine because the whole thing was under a tent anyway. “Millament’s Marquees,” she muttered to herself. “Very good.”

Dudley also overheard George commenting to Percy that when he finally got married, he would be sure not to do it at the Burrow to ensure that Molly didn’t die of the stress. 

He and Grace were just helping themselves to some leftovers for breakfast when the doorbell rang. “Oh!” said Molly, jumping. “Andromeda and Teddy are here! Grace, dear, would you mind getting the door?”

Dudley joined his wife in opening the front door, and was greeted with the sight of an older woman with light brown hair accompanied by a small child whose hair almost looked _green_ , but he rushed past the two to get further into the house so quickly that Dudley couldn’t be sure he’d seen correctly.

“Ah, hello,” said the woman, stepping into the Weasley home. “I’m Andromeda Tonks, nice to meet you. Molly told me that some of Harry’s family would be joining us, and I’m guessing…?”

“Yes, that’s us,” laughed Grace. “I’m Grace, and this is Dudley, Harry’s cousin and my fiancée.”

“Nice to meet you,” grunted Dudley for what felt like the twentieth time. There were just too many people.

“I would introduce you to Teddy, but he’s run off already,” Andromeda said exasperatedly. “George gave him some of their fireworks the last time he was here and now he’s off to demand more.”

“Fireworks?” asked Dudley with some alarm. The child hadn’t looked over five.

Andromeda chuckled. “Don’t worry, they’re perfectly safe. George designed them himself—for the joke shop, you know.” Dudley had heard some conversation about some shop from George the previous day, and concluded that these were one and the same. “And he’ll be wanting to see his godfather too, of course. I’d better stop him before he manages to spill something on Harry’s suit or some other nonsense.”

“Godfather?” asked Dudley, mostly to Grace, as Andromeda hurried away. Andromeda heard this quiet question and turned around, some strange emotions playing over her features—it seemed to be mostly sympathy and pain.

“Harry, of course,” she said, and hurried off. Dudley glanced guiltily at Grace, who placed a bracing hand on his shoulder.

“Seems like you bring up unpleasant memories for everyone,” came a dry voice from the doorframe. Dudley looked over to see George standing there, smile edging on cruel. 

“Excuse me?” said Grace sharply. Her voice seemed to snap George back into himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, more sincerely. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.” He turned and left.

“What is _his_ problem?” she muttered under her breath.

Dudley continued to wonder why he felt so out of the loop. With what little he’d heard the previous night, about the war and the name that had sounded vaguely familiar—Voldemort—it was starting to make sense that everyone was acting strangely, but it still didn’t quite make sense. Wasn’t everyone happy that Harry and Ginny were getting married? So why were some people acting as if it was somehow painful?

As the morning proceeded without further incident, Dudley almost forgot about the whole thing. The little boy appeared several times trailing after Harry or George, inexplicably with several different hair colors, but Dudley didn’t think about it too much. Maybe Andromeda was the boy’s mother, although she looked a bit old for it, and as she was clearly friends with Harry he was the godfather. It was a bit odd to realize that his cousin had a godchild who he’d never even heard of, much less met, but there was so much he didn’t know about Harry that this was merely the icing on the cake. 

Everyone was running around scrubbing, tidying, and placing flowers and other ornaments, but no one would permit Dudley or Grace to help—Molly shooed them off as being guests of the house, and Dudley could see that most of the work was being done by magic anyway. Harry and Ginny had disappeared a few hours earlier, probably to change and get ready for the ceremony, and so the muggle couple amused themselves quietly observing the various cleaning charms in play—Dudley was particularly fascinated by a feather duster moving of its own accord across a banister. It seemed like time was passing in a whirlwind, and Dudley peered out the window to see a huge marquee that hadn’t been present an hour earlier. The floating lights from the house were all along it, and it was colored in the same red and gold from the congratulatory banners he’d seen.

“C’mon, let’s go have a look,” exclaimed Grace, looking at the same thing he was. As they exited the house to look at the marquee, Dudley could see what looked like broomsticks embroidered along the edges. Did wizards really use those?

They weren’t the only ones outside—Hermione seemed to be overseeing the marquee’s setup. She caught their eye and laughed a little. “Of course those two have a quidditch-themed wedding,” she said jokingly. Dudley stared back, wishing for once he could be in on the joke. Hermione seemed to realize her mistake and elaborated. “Quidditch is a sport played on broomstick. Harry and Ginny both used to be on the house team, hence the colors, and now Ginny plays professionally. Harry probably could have, but he decided to take his career in a different direction after the war.”

“What does he do now?” asked Grace. Dudley felt embarrassed he didn’t know the answer, but was also very surprised by this new information. Harry played a sport? In fact, Harry was good enough at this sport to play _professionally_? He really had never known his cousin at all.

“Oh, Harry’s an Auror—they’re basically wizard, er, police I suppose,” said Hermione. 

“Harry’s a police officer?” asked Dudley.

“Er—ish,” said Hermione. “We both work for the Ministry of Magic—the magical government. Maybe it would be more accurate to call him a detective, or an agent?”

“What do you do? If it would make sense to us,” said Grace amusedly.

“I’m the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” said Hermione proudly. “Not exactly where I thought I’d be the last time I was at a wedding here, but… things change. For the better, in this case.”

“What exactly _happened_ —” began Dudley, but some of the men with the marquee suddenly required Hermione’s attention. 

“Well, we’d best go get changed, hadn’t we?” said Grace. “Wedding will start in a few hours.” Dudley nodded his assent and the two went back to their rooms, changing into their prepared high-end clothing. Dudley smoothed out the few wrinkles in his simple black suit as he stood in front of the mirror and adjusted his navy tie, while Grace came up next to him, green dress complementing her golden jewelry. 

“We look pretty nice, if I do say so myself,” she said. “Come on, people should be arriving.”

“Oh, wonderful, more people,” muttered Dudley joylessly.

 

—

 

Dudley and Grace sat midway towards the back of the tent, on the left side of the aisle—there didn’t seem to be any kind of bride or groom’s side, Dudley noticed. He also internally wondered if it was because there weren’t many people to put on the groom’s side. They had been seated early, so Dudley was able to watch the strange procession of witches and wizards trickle inside. Most men’s clothing didn’t seem to be all that different from a suit, just—longer, but the women’s outfits were wild and varied. He wondered what his mother would think of a blonde girl whose dress seemed to have been designed to resemble a giant cupcake, complete with a candle hat. 

Soon, they found their seat-mate arriving—a tall, muscular bearded man who struck Dudley as slightly threatening. He wore a fur cloak over what looked like a very expensive set of embroidered red robes. Grace, who was very rarely intimidated, immediately stuck out a hand to him.

“Grace Alby, lovely to meet you. I’m Harry’s cousin’s fiancée,” she said, indicated Dudley.

“I am Viktor, Viktor Krum,” he said, seemingly expecting some kind of response. He looked puzzled when he received none. Then, something seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, you are the muggles! I vos—Harry, and Fleur, ve did a tournament. And I knew Hermione.” Dudley couldn’t quite place his accent, but he wondered how international the magical community must be, for Fleur and Viktor and Harry to all know each other. 

Viktor then turned to the woman on his other side, a beautiful but stern-looking blonde, and began conversing with her in a language that sounded to Dudley like Russian, but he couldn’t be sure. He had never known much about languages other than English—he’d been supposed to learn Latin at Smeltings, but he had just beaten up smarter kids for their work and hadn’t learned a word.

Dudley turned to the man on his side. “Dudley Dursley,” he said, trying to follow Grace’s lead and sticking out a hand. “I’m Harry’s cousin.”

The man grinned. “Seamus Finnigan,” he said. “Oi! Over here!” He waved to a tall black man ducking through the crowd. The man’s face broke into a grin when he saw Seamus. 

“Seamus!” The two men hugged, and the newcomer took his seat next to the first. 

“Dean, this is Harry’s cousin Dudley.”

“Dean Thomas, nice to meet you,” said Dean.

“How do you both know Harry and Ginny?” asked Grace, repeating what seemed to be the most-asked question of the weekend.

“Friends at school,” supplied Dean.

“Harry saved our lives a fair couple times, too,” laughed Seamus.

“We were in the same club, too,” added Dean. “The D.A!” He and his friend high-fived. 

“Wasn’t that just the coolest year?” reminisced Seamus.

“Yeah, except for the bit where you and Harry were at each other’s throats—” began Dean.

“Not important now, is it? Unless you want me to go into how you and Ginny—”

“Oh, honestly, you two,” came a voice from behind them. A pair of Indian girls who looked like identical twins sat there, and one of them had just chided Seamus and Dean. “You sound like you’re back in school.”

“Parvati, Padma, hey!”

Suddenly, music began playing over the room, presumably out of some kind of speakers Dudley couldn’t see. It sounded more like a rock ballad than anything orchestral that Dudley would have expected from a wedding. From the tittering of the crowd, it was clear this was unusual but not unexpected. The lights dimmed except for those on the central aisle, which was a deep crimson color, and with so much gold decoration surrounding it the red seemed to glow.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were the first two down the aisle, both clearly near to tears. Most of the Weasley family seemed already affected by emotion—Dudley supposed he might have been, if there hadn’t already been so many shocking events, and if he knew Harry better. He could see most of the family sitting in the first row, and saw Angelina had her arm tightly wrapped around George as if he were shaking. Bill rubbed George’s shoulder from his other side. Dudley barely had time to wonder what was wrong before the crowd turned again.

Dudley had been wrong about the emotion—for some reason, seeing Harry struck him in a way he hadn’t expected. His cousin was as cleaned up as he had ever seen him, hair still not fully flattened but styled nicely. He wore a set of neat black robes that looked about as close to a traditional tuxedo as Dudley had seen, but instead of a flower in his lapel there was some kind of golden ball with wings. His green eyes were shining out as he smiled, so clearly happy and in love. Ron walked with him in gold robes, clearly awestruck by the moment as well. 

Dudley couldn’t believe Harry had made it to this, after living the way he had as a child. He suddenly wished his parents were there, just so they could see that they hadn’t broken him. Harry was happy, and alive, and undamaged by their treatment. He suddenly realized that Grace had been right the whole time. He really, really needed to talk to his cousin before he left.

Harry and Ron took their places at the front of the marquee, and turned to wait for the bride. Hermione and Ginny emerged from the back, Ginny dressed all in white. She wore a simple strapless gown with a flowing train, accompanied by Hermione who wore gold like Ron had. However, as Ginny made her way solemnly down the aisle, she suddenly laughed and spun around, revealing a golden back shawl to her dress that wasn’t visible previously—which declared in large red print “ _WEASLEY, 6”_ in the style of a sports jersey. There was a large shout of laughter from the crowd, and even Hermione was exasperatedly chuckling. 

“Oh my god, she really did it,” came one of the twins’ voices from behind them. Dudley detected a look of slight horror on Molly’s face, but she mostly looked amused. Ginny nearly ran up the rest of the aisle, leaving Hermione following as quickly as possible.

“Couldn’t keep away from me?” asked Harry, voice perhaps augmented by some microphone. Or magic, Dudley supposed.

“As I recall, _you_ were the one who could never keep away from _me_ ,” said Ginny, and the crowd tittered.

From the side of the marquee emerged a man that Dudley could not believe he had not noticed before. As soon as he saw him, he remembered the first time he’d met this giant of a man—breaking down the door of the hut to change all of their lives many years ago. There was no way he could ever forget _that_ night.

“Erm, ladies an’ gentlemen,” began the giant man, clearly beginning a much-practiced speech. “We are gathered here today ter celebrate the union o' two faithful souls…” Dudley’s attention to the words waned as he gazed at the picture. There was no way when he was a child he could ever have imagined attending a wedding quite like this one. Him, Dudley Dursley, sitting at a magical wedding surrounded by Harry’s school friends, watching his cousin and his bride with joy in their eyes. He unexpectedly felt a tear or two bead up. Grace slipped her arm through his.

“Do you, Harry James, take Ginevra Molly to be yer…” Hagrid continued. 

Harry nodded, almost whispering “I do” as he gazed into Ginny’s eyes, seemingly pleasantly shocked to find himself in this situation.

“Do you, Ginevra Molly, take Harry James—”

“Of course I do!” interrupted Ginny excitably. 

Hagrid let out a big belly laugh. “Yer suppose’ta let me finish, but all righ’. Then, I declare ye bonded fer life!” he finished joyously. The giant produced a shiny-looking wand from his pocket and delicately waved it above the couple, and silver stars exploded all around them with huge energy. Everyone applauded as Harry and Ginny embraced and kissed, and Hagrid quickly enveloped the two in a huge hug, tears streaming down his face.

Dudley stood and applauded, so glad that his cousin had been able to find this, even without any support. Harry was a stronger man than he would ever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter and the epilogue left! (also on Krum’s & Hagrid’s accents: just mimicking JK, let me know if there are any issues!)
> 
> Parts of the structure/dialogue from this chap was intentionally taken from Bill and Fleur’s wedding, in part because it’s the only ref we have for a magical wedding, and in part because I am very fuzzy on how real life weddings work, haha.
> 
> Next time: Dudley and Grace meet someone who's almost as uncomfortable to be there as they are, and finally get some answers about this strange mystery! Also, some heart-to-hearts.


	5. The Man Who Lived

While the wedding guests went up to greet the newly wed couple, Dudley and Grace relocated to one of the many tables, which were filling up quickly. As the two of them were staying until later that night, there would be plenty of time to speak with Harry and Ginny while the couple were not surrounded by a mob of people. Several more of the small golden balls with wings from Harry’s jacket seemed to have been released, and some of the guests seemed to be enjoying trying to snatch them out of the air. Dudley saw Harry tossing one lazily from hand to hand from across the room.

For the first time in the party, Dudley saw a man in a similar suit to his own—not a long, robe-style one that seemed to be popular with the rest of the crowd. This man seemed to have made a similar realization, and headed towards them. He was holding the hand of a very pretty Chinese woman who looked more distressed than Dudley would have expected for a wedding.

“Hello, there! Good to see some Muggles around other than me,” he said cheerily. “Mind if we sit?”

“Of course,” said Grace, pulling out a chair. “Lovely to meet you! I’m Grace and this is my fiancée, Dudley. He’s Harry’s cousin.”

The woman smiled at them faintly as the two sat down. “I’m Cho, and this is my husband Felix. I was a friend of Harry’s from school.”

“Don’t get much of a non-magic crowd around here, do they?” commented Felix.

“You’re the first we’ve met other than us,” said Grace.

“I’ve never met any of Harry’s family before. It’s nice to get the chance,” said Cho, but she wasn’t smiling. Dudley wondered if the distress he had noticed previously was a result of what she’d probably heard about him from Harry. Suddenly, she threw out her arm and caught one of the golden balls, laughing slightly. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Old habits?” asked Grace curiously.

“Never seen a Quidditch match, then?” asked Felix.

“No, I’m afraid we’re very new to the wizarding world,” admitted Grace.

“Hah! I know the feeling. I only found out about everything when we got married, about two years ago,” he said. “Those are called ‘snitches,’ they’re the ball you try to catch in Quidditch.”

“Were you on Harry’s team?” asked Grace to Cho, who was staring at the snitch in her hand.

“Oh no, I was in a different house,” said Cho vaguely.

“Hogwarts is divided into four houses, or so I’ve been told—the brave ones, smart ones, tough ones, and ambitious ones!” said Felix with the air of someone who’s told a joke many times before.

“Oh stop it, you know it’s not that simple,” chided Cho. “I was in Ravenclaw, and Harry and Ginny were in Gryffindor.” She smirked at her husband. “Maybe that’s how she managed to snatch Harry away from me.”

Felix roared with laughter. “Honey, don’t make me jealous!” he exclaimed. Cho laughed along at first, but then returned to her previous sullen expression. 

A dance had begun in the center of the floor, and George and Angelina were among the couples closest to their table, although they weren’t within earshot with the music blasting.

Suddenly, Dudley recognized whatever quality it was that had been escaping him about George’s face. “The twin!” he exclaimed to Grace. “The twins gave me that candy that made my tongue grow.”

Cho seemed to hear them and her frown deepened. “Am I wrong?” he asked. “Whatever happened to…”

“He died,” said Cho shortly. “In the war.” Dudley seemed to have upset her, and Grace shot him a reproachful look.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, there’s so much we don’t know—” began Grace.

“It’s quite all right, but if you would excuse me for a moment?” said Cho, and then practically ran out of the tent. Dudley and Grace sat awkwardly with Felix, who looked at their bemused faces and sighed.

“She’s not usually like this, she just finds these kind of situations—hard, sometimes,” he began to explain. “I think a lot of people do, now. From what I’ve heard, things were just so miserable for a while and so many people died that it feels—strange, for them to be happy, now. But you probably know more about it than I do, if you’re Harry’s cousin.”

“I really don’t,” admitted Dudley. “I didn’t even know there was a war.”

“Look, we’ve been told it’s not exactly dinner conversation, but would you mind telling us enough details that we don’t keep offending people?” pleaded Grace. Dudley stared at her, realizing how curious she must really be to be asking someone so outright.

“I’m surprised no one’s told you already,” said Felix. “Well, it isn’t exactly dinner conversation, I suppose. Really—Harry’s never—?”

“We don’t talk,” said Dudley. “Why does everyone seem to think I’ll know?” he asked, not angrily, just overwhelmed with curiosity.

“He was, well, right in the middle of it,” said Felix. “He was the one who finally took down—Cho doesn’t like me to say his name, even now, but— _Voldemort_ ,” he said, whispering slightly. “It used to be taboo to say the name, but I suppose now that he’s dead it doesn’t matter.”

“Harry did?” asked Dudley. “When?”

“When he was about seventeen, I guess,” said Felix. “It sounds like something out of a fantasy novel—but I suppose, magic is real, so maybe it kind of is. He was like, the ‘chosen one’ or something. And I guess it worked in the end. He won the war.”

“ _Harry_?” asked Dudley, incredulous.

“And Cho—she had a bit of a rough time, with it. Her boyfriend, when she was young, Cedric—he was one of the first people to be killed by Voldemort. When he rose for the second time, I mean.”

“The second time?” asked Grace in a horrified tone. Dudley felt a horrible flash of memory hit him as he recalled saying to Harry in a mocking tone, “ _Don’t kill Cedric!”_ How was he supposed to know that Harry was having nightmares about a teenager who had died?

“Yeah, well, Cho told me that Harry stopped him the first time, too. When Voldemort killed his parents when he was a baby. Couldn’t kill Harry for some reason—some kind of magic thing—and then he was basically destroyed. Until he came back.”

Dudley and Grace stared at him. 

“And I think being here with Harry, like she used to be—I think it makes her feel guilty, that she’s alive when so many people aren’t. She’s been going to meetings about survivor’s guilt and all that, but it’s hard when she can’t exactly talk about what happened.”

“There aren’t—like—wizard groups?” asked Grace. 

Felix shrugged. “I dunno if wizards are as far along on the whole, well, mental health train as they ought to be. Considering how many people here are probably suffering from PTSD…” 

He looked around. “I mean, I don’t think Harry’s ever seen anybody, and so many people died around him. Or at least I don’t think he has. He tried to help Cho, a few years ago, when she had a bit of a breakdown. This is way too much information, but—you’re his family, I guess.”

“People died around him?” echoed Dudley. He’d known about Harry’s parents, but Harry had only been a baby when it happened. But Felix kept saying that lots of people had died, so he supposed Harry must have witnessed it, been affected by it—how had Dudley never noticed? He’d been a thick teenager, but he hadn’t thought he was quite _that_ thick.

“Yeah, loads,” said Felix morosely. “I mean, Cedric, his godfather Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore—”

“I think I met him,” half-whispered Dudley.

“And then Remus Lupin and his wife both died and now Harry’s helping out looking after their kid. And so many more, at the Battle of Hogwarts—that was the final battle of the war. Cho fought in it. So did pretty much everyone else here. That’s when Fred Weasley died, the one you said you knew…”

Felix trailed off, seeming to realize he’d been talking for quite a while. “Oh my goodness, I’ve just invaded so many people’s privacies. Cho tells me I just keep going when I’ve got my mouth open, but…”

“It’s okay,” Grace assured him. “It’s good to know, so we stop stepping on people’s toes.”

Speaking of, the song ended and George and Angelina plodded over to their table. “Hey, Felix,” he said, and Angelina shot him a stern look.

“Hello, Dudley, Grace,” she added. “Beautiful wedding, isn’t it?”

“Lovely,” agreed Grace. Dudley was thinking about what George had said the previous night, about how terrorists had invaded Bill and Fleur’s wedding. No wonder everyone seemed a bit on edge. Although it had been several years, to everyone here it must seem as though things were going too well for something terrible not to happen. 

“So how’ve you been, Felix?” began Angelina, and Felix launched into a long-winded answer. Through the conversation, George kept shooting him and Grace glares, to the point where Grace stood up. 

“Well, why don’t we try and find Harry?” she said with false brightness in her voice. Angelina elbowed George.

“Dudley, would you walk with me for a moment?” asked George sullenly.

“Er—of course,” he said awkwardly. Why did George want to talk to him? George seemed to despise him.

The two exited the tent and began to meander around slowly. “Look, Angelina said I’ve been really rude, so I wanted to apologize,” he began, insincerity dripping from every word.

“Please, don’t,” said Dudley. “I probably deserve every bit. I was a right git when I was younger, and I haven’t done anything to make up for it yet. When I have, then you can apologize.” He paused, shocked by his own eloquence.

George shot him a surprised look as well, a nice change from cruel smiles or glares. “All right,” he said. “If you say so. I just—Harry’s just as much of a brother to me as—as any of my family. And Ron knows what Harry’s told him, but I think he was a bit young to understand what he was seeing, when he was growing up.”

Dudley nodded. “This will sound like an excuse, but I don’t think I really understood what I was seeing, either,” he responded.

George chuckled. “No, you didn’t seem like you did. I remember you running from room to room when Fred and I—” he stuttered to a halt. Now knowing what he did, Dudley said nothing.

George remained silent and still for so long that Dudley was beginning to be worried. “Hey, are you—” he began, but George’s shoulders were shaking.

“It’s so happy here, I should be happy,” he repeated, mostly to himself.

“It’s okay to be sad. It’s always okay,” said Dudley, hoping repeating his mother’s advice wasn’t a terrible idea in this situation. “You can’t control it.”

George was just standing there, looking as though he was about to cry, and Dudley wondered wildly what Grace would do. Then again, he knew what she would do, and he was pretty sure George would hit him if he tried to hug him.

“I’m sorry if us being here—if we—” began Dudley, but suddenly he found George hugging him, a few tears leaking out of his eyes.

“It’s not you. I’ve been a right git as well, and I’m sorry,” said George shakily from Dudley’s shoulder. “It’s just—seeing Ginny get married, and wishing he was here—and remembering the last wedding, when he _was_ here—it’s just—” He trailed off. Dudley patted his back awkwardly. His internal monologue was mostly just yelling at him to get out the situation, but he had no idea how.

Before he could figure out some kind of exit plan, George broke away from him. Dudley could see Angelina approaching from the tent, and realized they were still visible to their table. 

“George? Honey?” she said hesitantly. He turned to look at her, wiping his eyes. She smiled at Dudley, and then put her hand on George’s back, leading him further away from the tent.

Dudley stood in the faint mist, looking back into the lights in the tent. There _was_ a whole world out here he had never known about, but it had never seemed quite so _human_. Even Felix’s descriptions couldn’t quite make him understand the way holding a crying man could. Even with magic and trolls and pixies or whatever, these people had been through just as much as any veteran. More, maybe. After all, they had just been kids.

Harry had just been a kid.

As if it were fate, he saw Harry taking a breather from the dancing, walking out of the tent for a moment with a glass of water. On the inside, he could just barely make out Arthur dancing merrily with Ginny.

“Hey, Harry!” he called. Harry jerked with shock and looked up at him.

“Hey, Dud,” he said casually. He still looked slightly out of breath and sweaty, probably taking a moment to recover from the hot tent.

“I know it’s your wedding and you’re really happy right now, and God, I don’t want to affect that at all, so—I’d like to talk to you for a second, but feel free to tell me to bugger off?” he said hesitantly.

Harry nodded. “No, it’s—we should, and—”He cut himself off, seeming to not know what to say.

“I’ve found out a lot of stuff about your life that I never knew,” said Dudley. “You’re a hero, and you went through so much and I never even noticed. I barely even thanked you for saving my life, and didn’t even try to connect with you.”

Harry looked like he might object, but he didn’t.

“But none of it should have mattered. You don’t have to be a hero for me to have been awful—for my parents to have been awful. By all rights, you should have been awful too. But you never were. And—and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Harry. Thank you for giving me this chance.”

Dudley wasn’t sure he’d said everything he wanted to, but he thought he’d said enough. Figuring if he was doing hugs today anyway, he extended his arms for his cousin. Pausing for only a moment, Harry hugged him, and Dudley hugged him back. It wasn’t a tight or long hug, but it was enough.

“And congratulations, you git!” Dudley exclaimed, shaking Harry’s shoulder slightly.

Harry laughed, and, looked at him, and spoke for the first time. “It’s okay, Dudley, really. I think—I think I forgave you the first time you ever told me you didn’t think I was a waste of space.” With that, Harry turned and walked back into the reception, grinning broadly.

Dudley looked out onto the misty countryside, and smiled to himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left now, folks, which should be rather short. Thanks for sticking with me, your support means the world!!!


	6. Epilogue (Two Months Later)

Dudley and Grace sat around the long table with Petunia and Vernon, who was in the middle of some long story about his boss’s brother. Ever since the wedding, these dinners had become increasingly uncomfortable—it felt as if he was keeping some kind of massive secret from his parents. He’d expressed this discomfort to Grace, but she’d assured him that Harry probably didn’t plan on keeping his marriage a secret forever.

As if on cue, Petunia cleared her throat. “We received a _wedding announcement_ from the boy,” she warbled. “With a note. Telling us that _you_ had gone to his wedding. And that he was sorry he hadn’t invited us.”

“Really?” asked Dudley, shocked. He hadn’t expected Harry to be quite so candid.

“ _Really,_ ” she said, clearly expecting him to begin dishing the dirt on his cousin.

“Yes, we did go,” he said.

“I can’t imagine why,” she said in a snide tone. “So many _freaks_ in one room…”

“Harry’s not a freak, mum,” he said simply. “Neither was anyone else there. It was a nice wedding.”

“Yes, it was,” concurred Grace. “Harry’s wife is lovely.”

“I’m sure,” tittered Petunia.

“Bunch of ruddy lunatics,” grunted Vernon. “Don’t spend too much time with them, son. They’ll corrupt your mind.”

“Oh, come off it,” he said. “Dad, Harry’s a good man. You’d know as much if you were to reach out to him. He’d probably really appreciate an apology.”

“An apology?” muttered Vernon. “For what? For a home? For food? For paying for his every need for seventeen years?!”

“You know what,” said Dudley. “I can’t do this.” He stood up, and Grace stood with him. “You two need to really think about the things you've done, you know that?” he said sharply. 

“I’m going to go now. I’ll talk to you both later.” He quickly exited the dining room and made his way to the car, Grace following right behind him.

As soon as they left the house, she flung her arms around him. He leaned his head against her shoulder as they tottered towards their car further down the street in this strange attached formation.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered.

“You always say that,” he whispered back with a grin on his face.

“That’s because it’s true,” she responded.

As Grace drove them home, he spotted something on the dashboard. As he picked it up, he turned it over curiously and Grace saw him out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh, that’s the wedding invitation. I had to mail it after the others because I wasn’t sure of the address, but I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

 

_Dear Harry and Ginny,_

_Thank you so much for inviting us to the lovely wedding. We’re having our own in a few months, and we’d love it if you two would come. I know it may not be possible for us to be friends, exactly, but maybe we could be Christmas-card-family? We could use some more people like the two of you in our lives._

_Love,_

_Dudley and Grace_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it!!! Thanks so much for reading! Probably gonna write some more HP fics soon. Please leave a comment if you feel like it!


End file.
